Generational Dynamics Forum - New Site

22-Nov-10 News -- Sunni Muslim population growth exacerbates food crisis

Ireland requests $130 billion bailout from EU

** 22-Nov-10 News -- Sunni Muslim population growth exacerbates food crisis
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi ... 22#e101122

Contents:
"Sunni Muslim population growth exacerbates food crisis"
"Additional links"
North Korea's nuclear advances cause reactions
Ireland requests $130 billion bailout from EU
US plan for 90-day Israeli settlement freeze in limbo

John wrote:The Green Revolution led to huge increases in food production in the 1960s and 1970s, but for some reason, many people believe that the Green Revolution is some magic potion that will last forever. In many ways it was a one shot deal -- improve crop yields by using a lot more water, fertilizer and insecticides.

A plot of corn yields per acre shows continuous improvement.

http://www.agry.purdue.edu/ext/corn/new ... d2003.html

John wrote: But over the years, my articles on the Malthus effect and the food crisis have generated more hysterical responses than the others.

I wonder if you count my response yesterday and today amoung these hysterical responses.

John wrote:Malthus effect

The Malthus effect has ALWAYS been wrong.
Just to say that is NOT a good reference.

We will have a food problem, I have no doubt about that, but it mostly comes from the stupid ape we are.

If you want food, you need
-- good agricultural soil (because of the glacier effect, they are located in the north hemisphere (speak with experts on agriculture), and because of stupidity of the mankind, which builds homes on the best soils, year after year we become poorer)
-- water (good use of water could be largely increased)
-- bio-technology to a better use of the soil. AND a good use of these technologies (in order not to have a good short-term effect and a destructive long-term effect, which looks like being the NORM within the humanity today)
-- transports to deliver food from where is it produced to where it is consumned (now with the high probability of the Peak Oil eventS (plural) it surely is a problem in the near future)
-- a population which grows at more or less the same speed than the production (this is NOT the Malthus effect, because it has many, many paramaters in it). Now what we have is the effect of the poorest countries where having a lot af children is (and has always been) the norm. Religion has, in itself, nothing to do with that.
-- a financial system interested in long-term production (so that capital is correctly invested)
(I think I'm exhaustive and objective, if anyone has a remark, it will be welcome)

BUT I agree with you in saying that we are going, in a short time frame (20 years??), to face a problem between the richest countries and the poorest countries, problem which will be only solved by a war (and a bloody and stupid one).
Religion will be used as a motivation factor, and on which side will be China is a main question (it IS its interest to be on the side of the richest countries, BUT i strongly believe that men takes ALWAYS the worst long-term decisions when they are in group, so ...)

Regards

If the food supply grows as fast as the population, then how
do you guys explain the tens of thousands of wars that occur
every century?

John

P.S.: Vince, no I wasn't referring to you.

John wrote:If the food supply grows as fast as the population, then how
do you guys explain the tens of thousands of wars that occur
every century?

My point today was just that crop yield improvement was not just a one shot thing. However, even if corn yield goes up by X bushels every 10 years it does not keep up with exponential population growth.

Yesterday's point was just that your graph of the last 20 years does not show evidence of Malthus effect. Looks more like the huge increases in money printing over the last decade are impacting food commodity prices.

You may well be right that population growth to the point that food production is difficult results in wars; however, these two posts are not solid evidence of that.

By your thesis people should be farming marginal lands more in the period before wars but not so much after. And by looking at how marginal the land is you might say how close to a war you are. Something along those lines would seem stronger evidence.

Since both USA and Europe currently pay many of farmers to keep huge amounts of land fallow, it seems doubtful that there will be such evidence in either of these places. But maybe in the rest of the world.

Birth control has greatly slowed net birth rates. Also, farming methods have some steady improvement. So if wars were every 3 generations before, with the new slower birthrates it might take 4 or 5 generations now, even if you theory is correct.

vincecate wrote:

John wrote:If the food supply grows as fast as the population, then how
do you guys explain the tens of thousands of wars that occur
every century?

My point today was just that crop yield improvement was not just a one shot thing. However, even if corn yield goes up by X bushels every 10 years it does not keep up with exponential population growth.

Yesterday's point was just that your graph of the last 20 years does not show evidence of Malthus effect. Looks more like the huge increases in money printing over the last decade are impacting food commodity prices.

You may well be right that population growth to the point that food production is difficult results in wars; however, these two posts are not solid evidence of that.

By your thesis people should be farming marginal lands more in the period before wars but not so much after. And by looking at how marginal the land is you might say how close to a war you are. Something along those lines would seem stronger evidence.

Since both USA and Europe currently pay many of farmers to keep huge amounts of land fallow, it seems doubtful that there will be such evidence in either of these places. But maybe in the rest of the world.

Birth control has greatly slowed net birth rates. Also, farming methods have some steady improvement. So if wars were every 3 generations before, with the new slower birthrates it might take 4 or 5 generations now, even if you theory is correct.

So much verbiage. And yet, you've made no attempt to answer the question:

If the food supply grows as fast as the population, then how
do you guys explain the tens of thousands of wars that occur
every century?

John

John wrote: So much verbiage. And yet, you've made no attempt to answer the question:

If the food supply grows as fast as the population, then how
do you guys explain the tens of thousands of wars that occur
every century?

Here is a really cool video showing how amazingly fast wars changed the European map over the last 1000 years:

http://vimeo.com/16914018

Certainly the history books provide many other reasons for war. Such as land, self determination, religion, empire building, oil, gold, diamonds, money, debts, women, treaties, nationalism, honor, etc.

Now theoretically your explanation makes sense. And perhaps there really is a deeper stress in the system of not having enough food and these are just the official recorded reasons. So, perhaps you are right. However, I don't think the experimental evidence has been well established yet.

John wrote:So much verbiage. And yet, you've made no attempt to answer the question:

If the food supply grows as fast as the population, then how
do you guys explain the tens of thousands of wars that occur
every century?

John

I'm sorry to say that NOBODY proved until now that any kind of Maltus effect was related to wars. wars could come from the nature of the man (it is what you suggest, by the way, in the generational eras)
So "Malthus effect" is a word which looks like being something you have to believe or not, not a theory (a theory is based on facts).

If you have any serious readings about that I'd be glad to read them.

Regards

good article, more on xenophobia, this time in Germany...here are 2 snippets, then the link...

"Nowhere in Europe is the gap between public opinion and published opinion as wide as in Germany. And nowhere has public policy been more influenced by a 1960s generation, post-national, society-is-to-blame kind of liberalism. Yet this “official” liberalism has never reflected the way people live and think, even in the German chattering classes. When I lived in the country, 20 years ago, it felt far more socially conservative than the similar circles I had come from in London."

"Ultimately, Sarrazin’s hard-headedness is a welcome counterpoint to the wishful thinking of the 1968 generation. The former finance minister of Berlin, who looks like a soldier in the Kaiser’s army, is a member of the awkward squad. You can imagine him causing minor riots at liberal Berlin dinner parties. Most of his argument is clear-eyed and well-informed, but he could not resist the provocations both on intelligence and on the nature of the underclass, which he never bothers to define. Yet the fact that his book has been so influential, despite the provocations, marks an important step forward for Germany—not only in facing up to the failures of its past immigration policies, but also in bridging the wide gap between popular opinion and the political class and thus preventing a German Haider."



http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2010/ ... sm-review/

John wrote: So much verbiage. And yet, you've made no attempt to answer the question:

If the food supply grows as fast as the population, then how
do you guys explain the tens of thousands of wars that occur
every century?

Also, I like the basic generational dynamics logic that after the people who fought the last war die off the people still alive don't really understand how horrible war is. I think this works even if there is still enough food. So it might just be that wars come before food scarcity ever becomes a problem.

But again, the food scarcity theory sounds plausible. I just would like to see better how the historical evidence really lines up with that theory. Can it alone predict wars?

Primates fight in what is much like a war when food becomes scare or to gain territory. To me this also supports your theory.

http://news.discovery.com/animals/chimp ... avior.html